Playing with my cutting machine

I’ve been having so much fun creating paper crafts with my cutting machine.  I’m still on a learning curve but enjoying the process.

I’ve found several websites that supply svg files that you can use with cutting machines .  All of the websites I have been using offer free svgs along with some for sale.

 Jennifer Maker.com has really good tutorials on almost everything you would want to know about using your machine.  She also offers a free svg library for use with cutting machines.

Birthday Cake card made from svg file
designed by Jennifer Maker

Esmeralda's Quaint Cottage Halloween House found on 
Jennifer Maker's blog designed by Lucy Foxworth

I tried to make her pop up birthday cake card.  The file and tutorial she offers is great.  I also made Esmeralda’s Quaint Cottage Halloween House that I found on Jennifer’s blog.  The design was created by Lucy Foxworth.  I decided to give it a more spring look using some of the embellishments from Jennifer Maker’s pop up Fairy house card.

Album made from svg designed by Lori Whitlock using 
Dreaming Tree's Design Elements on the front

I also bought a few svgs from the LoriWhitlock.com website.  I made one of the albums she designed.  I then added a free Design Element from Dreaming Tree to the front of the album.

Dreaming Tree’s website 3dsvg.com has so many free svgs that you can download along with several that you can purchase.  I used their free Design Element for the album designed by Lori Whitlock and also on some greeting cards that I made.  I really enjoyed creating Dreaming Tree's Bookmarks too.

Cards made using Dreaming Tree's Design
Elements SVG

Bookmarks made from Dreaming Tree's SVG

 

But I had the most fun creating the Dreaming Tree’s Darling Dresses Greeting Cards!

Dreaming Tree's Darling Dresses Greeting Cards

Hope  you are enjoying a creative day!

You can find out about my self-study classes by clicking on the picture below.

 

Self Study Classes by Marla L. Niederer

I will be teaching The Goddess online starting May 11^th on AforArtistic.  You can find out more by clicking on the picture below.

 

The Goddess Online Class with Marla L. Niederer

You can find out about the Little Lion Art doll I have for sale by clicking on the picture below.

 

Little Lion Art Doll by Marla L. Niederer

You can find out about all the free tutorials I offer by clicking on the picture below.

 

Free Tutorials by Marla L. Niederer

If you want to find out more about me click on my picture below.

 

About Me

Until next time…….

 

warm hugs,

 

Marla 

Painting Buddy and Using the Cricut Maker

Buddy by Marla L.Niederer

My son adopted two kitties a little over six months ago.  They are both absolutely adorable and my son Jason sends me pictures of them and their antics frequently.  So I decided to paint one of them, named Buddy, from a picture that Jason sent.  The pictures make me smile and I hope the painting I did brings a smile to your face too.

Graphite sketch by Marla L. Niederer

First layer of watercolors by Marla L. Niederer

Second layer of watercolors by Marla L. Niederer

Since I am still having difficulties with my right arm I painted this predominantly with my left hand.  I started out with just a graphite pencil.  I then added several layers of watercolors.  I kept adding layers until it felt done to me.  I am working on learning when to let a painting be and stop before overworking it. 

More layers of watercolors by Marla L. Niederer

Even more watercolor layers by Marla L. Niederer

Here is the completed painting of Buddy.

Buddy by Marla L. Niederer

I thought I would also share with you what else I have been working on the past week.  My husband gifted me with a Cricut Maker machine about a week ago.  If you are not familiar with the machine, it cuts, scores, embosses, foils, a variety of materials such as paper, kraft board, cardstock,  matt board, vinyl, fabric, chipboard, leather, very thin wood, and foam.  It really is quite an amazing machine. Getting it to do all of those amazing things is quite a learning curve for me though.  To use the machine you need to become familiar with its software, learn how to download and upload svg files, amongst other things.  I didn’t even know what a svg file was before last week! Luckily there are all kinds of tutorials out there and plenty of free svg projects to try out while learning.  I came across Jennifer Maker on YouTube and she is such an excellent teacher. I watched several of her beginner tutorials on using the machine and was able to set up the machine and make my first cut with it the first day I had it.  She shares a large amount of projects for the machine for free also.  I downloaded her Layered 3D Christmas ornament for my first Cricut project on day two.  On day three I decided I was going to create my own design.  I learned that it is going to take more than a week to learn how to create my own designs using the Cricut Maker Lol!

First cut with my Cricut Maker machine

Project designed by Jennifer Maker created on my Cricut Maker machine

So I plan to continue to learn how to create with it and play with its software for now.  Hope you are also enjoying a creative week and I’ll leave you with a picture of my view from my studio from this week.

 

Outside my studio window

You can find out about my self-study classes by clicking on the picture below.

 

Self Study Classes by Marla L. Niederer

I will be teaching The Goddess online starting May 11^th on AforArtistic.  You can find out more by clicking on the picture below.

 

The Goddess Online Class with Marla L. Niederer

You can find out about the Little Lion Art doll I have for sale by clicking on the picture below.

 

Little Lion Art Doll by Marla L. Niederer

You can find out about all the free tutorials I offer by clicking on the picture below.

 

Free Tutorials by Marla L. Niederer

If you want to find out more about me click on my picture below.

 

About Me

Until next time…….

 

warm hugs,

 

Marla